Reason 6: Two words

The next reason I will vote the way I intend to has to do with two words.

The first is "Jeep".  Romney said to a crowd in Toledo (where Chrysler makes Jeeps) that Chrysler is planning to move Jeep production for the American market to China.  "That's 2,000 jobs lost.  [If elected] I'll fight for every job."  Blah blah blather blah.  Problem with this was, that's not at all what Chrysler said.  The company took out ads to respond that they what they were going to do is resume Jeep production for the Chinese market in China.  They said they aren't taking those American jobs anywhere, that in fact they intend to add jobs in America.  Did this pants-down misreading of the news cause any chagrin in the Romney camp?  No.  In fact the campaign thereafter blithely rolled out an ad, oh-so-carefully worded, that said something like, "Chrysler will be producing Jeeps in China."  Literally true, but because of the wording a false impression is created that all Jeep production is involved.  Creating the false impression is the only reason such an ad would be run; it's hardly noteworthy by a political campaign that a plant for an overseas market is being opened on site in the location of that market.  

This is a poster child for the dishonesty that I believe has permeated Romney's campaign.  All the hullabaloo about his confident style in the first debate overlooked the slight problem that he was not truthful in much of what he said there.  He does indeed have a $5 trillion tax cut planned as the flagship of his economic "plan."  America has created millions of private sector jobs under this President.  Romney has no plan for what to do if he manages to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and he will not be able to undo it on day 1 if he gets elected.  The parade of phoniness goes on and on.  The mainstream press doesn't call him on a lot of this, or does so in a timid way that negates the impact of doing so.  If Chrysler had not taken out the ads refuting Romney, I think the Jeep phoniness would have been glossed over, too.  The mainstream press is so afraid of having its objectivity challenged by partisans that it elevates the importance of the appearance of objectivity over that of telling truths that some won't like. 

The second word is CRUT, an estate planner's abbreviation for a tool called a Charitable Remainder Uni-Trust.  This device involves setting up a trust which pays a fixed amount to the donor each year (a percentage of the total trust value, as opposed to the "income" of the trust, hence "uni-trust", since principal and income are lumped together for the calculation) for a period of time, and what remains at the end is paid to a designated charity.  If you contributed appreciated capital gain property to such a trust, the trust could sell the property tax-free, using the charitable status of the remainder beneficiary, and you could deduct the after-sale value of the property given to the trust as a charitable contribution.  As a hedge fund manager, Romney's income from his company, Bain, was all treated as capital gain property.  (This hedge fund income loophole remains and needs very badly to be addressed.)  A very clever maneuver, tailor-made to reduce or eliminate the taxes Romney would pay.  Romney used these extensively to avoid paying taxes on much or most of his income during the eighties and nineties.  Once the law changed and the loophole these devices represented was closed, and it became apparent that he wanted to run for national office, Romney discontinued this practice, but the CRUTs already set up were "grandfathered".  His CRUTs gave the absolute minimum to the charity he selected--the LDS Church--and huge distributions--something like 8%-- to him annually.

All this was legal.  Any lawyer worth anything knows that "legal" is not the same as "ethical" or "right".  A great lawyer, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, said that, "Taxes are the price we pay for living in a civilized society."   The common wage-earner has been paying for Mitt Romney to enjoy the benefits of civilized society, and Mitt has not paid his way.  That's why he has refused to disclose his earlier tax returns--the most recent do not reveal these devices he has used to shift the burden of paying for civilization to others.  I believe this tax strategy shows a clever person determined to maximize the gain to himself and minimize his own personal responsibility.  I could understand and tolerate this attitude from a client, but I don't want to see it in a President.  Oh, and it looks like good old Harry Reid had it right after all.